ISO Olympics began on the 11th of September, 2009, with volleyball being the first sport to be played amongst the different sports lined up for this big event. Area clubs had begun their preparations much before the start of this event. Like any other area club, ISA too had to submit the names of the participants for the different sports by the 31st of August. This year, due to some changes in the Olympic rules, the area clubs faced some problem while submitting their participants’ names. As per ISO rules, there can be only one participant per area club per sport. But ISA had much more talent to offer! It was ready with a set of 15 names for badminton and 5 names for table tennis to participate in this event. So, all the participants had to go through knock-out matches and the best players were selected for the ISO Olympics. Eventually, we were ready to submit the names of the participants who would represent ISA in badminton and table tennis. Volley ball and soccer teams of course, were ready with their own teams, so no matches or selection processes were necessary. Other games in which ISA participated were basketball and tennis.

It was a great start for ISA when we won our first matches in volleyball and in soccer on the 11th and 12th of September and were qualified for the semi-finals. The volleyball team continued with this trend and won the second match thus qualifying for the finals to be played on the 19th of September. However, the soccer team lost in the semi-finals and had to play for the 3rd position on the 20th of September.

Now, it was time for the other games such as badminton, table tennis and basketball. Sterling performances by our participants gave ISA reason to rejoice: we won the gold in badminton women’s singles (Himabindu) and the silver in badminton women’s doubles (Himabindu & Swapnika). Rohit and Rajesh did ISA still more proud by winning the bronze in badminton men’s doubles. Well, the ISA success story continued with the silver in table tennis men’s singles (Ranjan), gold in table tennis men’s doubles (Bhargava and Ranjan) and gold in table tennis women’s doubles(Himabindu and Swapnika).

We were extremely delighted when ISA won the gold in tennis (Annamalai Ramesh). The Volleyball team proved its skills by winning the gold against NSA.

In the final count, ISA won the ISO Olympics, 2009 and this has been the fourth consecutive year that ISA has achieved this pride of place!!!

Our sincere gratitude to ISO for organizing this event; indeed ISO Olympics 2009 was played with a remarkable spirit of sportsmanship and ISA feels proud to have been a part of the same!

Thanks to all the participants for taking part in this year’s ISO Olympics & congratulations to all the winners!

ISA will be back with more success stories to be made in ISO Olympics 2010!!!

Following is the list of events in which India shone unequivocally:

Volleyball
Gold: Anirudh B , Arjun A , Atul N , Avinash R , Balaji J , Bhargava Y ,Chaitanya B , Dilip B , Mahesh N , Rahul B , Swarup J , Venu L

Badminton
Women's Singles
Gold - Himabindu Visireddy

Men's Doubles
Bronze - Rohit Nair / Rajesh Hariharan

Women's Doubles
Silver - Himabindu Visireddy / Swapnika Ratakonda

Table Tennis
Men's Singles
Silver- Ganapathi Ranjan Mahadvan

Men's Doubles
Gold- Bhargava Yerragrapada/ Ganapathi Ranjan Mahadevan

Women's Doubles
Gold- Himbindu Visireddy/ Swapnika Ratakonda

Tennis
Men's Singles
Gold : Annamalai Ramesh

Nilesh Naik

Sports Secretary

Indian Students Association